Wildfires

Inhaling smoke from wildfires equal to smoking a few packs a day: researcher

By
Hina Alam The Associated Press

As we prepare for the possibility of another bad wildfire season, health officials are warning that the damage from breathing in all that smoke could be greater than first imagined. Sarah Macdonald has more.

Inhaling smoke from a wildfire can be equal to smoking a couple of packs of cigarettes a day depending on its thickness, says a researcher studying wildfires in Western Canada.

Mike Flannigan, a professor with the Department of Renewable Resources at the University of Alberta, said the smoke is like a “chemical soup” that can be trapped in the lungs and cause a number of health issues.

Depending on the size of the particles, they get trapped in the lungs, accumulate over time and cause “all kinds of problems,” Flannigan said.

“The more we are finding out about smoke and health, the more we are finding out it is bad for us, which isn’t a surprise but it’s worse than we thought.”

WATCH: As we prepare for the possibility of another bad wildfire season, health officials are warning that the damage from breathing in all that smoke could be greater than first imagined. Sarah Macdonald has more.

The spread hinges on how high smoke and fire columns rise. Winds can carry the particles north to Europe and Asia, across the world and back again, Flannigan said.

“They can travel long distances for long periods of time.”

BC Wildfire Service crews encounter a “fire whirl” while fighting a wildfire near Vanderhoof, B.C. on Aug. 19, 2018.

Mary Schidlowsky/Instagram (Via The Canadian Press)

Henderson said most people living in polluted places face a risk of chronic diseases and slightly shorter life expectancy but that data comes from cities such as New Delhi, one of the most polluted cities in the world.

The air quality in British Columbia is “extremely good” except for a few weeks during wildfire season, she said.

“If we have a season like 2017 and 2018, year after year for the next 20 years, we probably will have a health impact on the population but we don’t know what that will be yet,” Henderson said.

People should protect themselves from the smoke by spending time indoors, using air filters and not exercising strenuously when outside, she said.

In 2017, the area burned in B.C. was 12,000 square kilometres, which was a record until last summer when 13,000 square kilometres of the province was consumed by fire. The B.C. government declared a state of emergency for both seasons.

In Alberta the wildfire season used to begin April 1 but it’s now starting March 1 and is lasting longer.

“In Canada our area burned has doubled since the 1970s. And my colleagues and I attribute this to — I can’t be any clearer — human-caused climate change,” he said. “Our climate is changing and this has affected fire activity in Canada, western United States and other parts of the world.”

“On an average we’re going to see a lot more fire, and they’re going to be longer fire seasons, more intense, and the primary reason why climate change influences fire activity is that the warmer it gets the more fire we see.”

WATCH BELOW: August 15, 2018: As B.C. declared a state of emergency due to wildfires, Edmontonians woke up to an eerily orange and smoky sky. Fletcher Kent reports.